Bitcoin Forum

Rumour is China has banned Bitcointalk.  Does this mean there could be less scams and/or less bad english?  How will the Chinese learn about alternates?

Well I don't think it's a rumor anymore

http://www.websitepulse.com/help/testtools.china-test.html (http://www.websitepulse.com/help/testtools.china-test.html)

Website Test Results
Tested From:   Shanghai, China
Tested At:   2014-09-22
06:18:59 (GMT +00:00)
URL Tested:   https://bitcointalk.org
Resolved As:   8.7.198.45
Status:   SSL connection timeout
Response Time:   0.018 sec
DNS:   0.006 sec
Connect:   0.004 sec
Redirect:   0.000 sec
First Byte:   0.000 sec
Last Byte:   0.009 sec
Size:   0 bytes
Tested From:   New York, NY
Tested At:   2014-09-22
06:18:59 (GMT +00:00)
URL Tested:   https://bitcointalk.org
Resolved As:   109.201.133.195
Status:   OK
Response Time:   0.751 sec
DNS:   0.081 sec
Connect:   0.084 sec
Redirect:   0.000 sec
First Byte:   0.498 sec
Last Byte:   0.088 sec
Size:   87524 bytes

like chinese live only in china lmao

Do they block by IP or domain?

Ip. Go to any China proxy and try for Yourself.

Why does the Chinese government let people have the internet at all?  ::)

That used to be the case on bitcointalk, and many long time members would love to see that rule return. Unfortunately, it hasn't...

You can check out which areas are affected through the link below.

http://www.greatfirewallofchina.org/index.php?siteurl=bitcointalk.org

There is already an article about the ban.

http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/great-firewall-of-china-blocks-bitcointalk-org/

The Chinese language section here must be a major source of information for Chinese alt coin buyers.

Litecointalk is not blocked yet, I wonder if it would ever be since LTC is popular in China?

Maybe this is a political thing just like how Google got blocked in China.  Yes Bitcoin is international but many of its' original personalities tend to be American.

All of my friends in China use VPN to access blocked sites, beyond that I don't see much of a negative impact of particularly Chinese users in the altcoin section.

I think you meant on*  ???

Yeah it's true that people in China have had like a decade or more to figure out VPNs and proxies, so I'm sure they can still access Bitcointalk (maybe with some issues logging in or slower speeds but will still have access)

Do they also block VPN service providers there or don't bother with this?

There are some attempts (from service providers) to do this here and there but overall they pretty much don't. I never have issues using VPNs when I'm over there. If you want to access a blocked site, there's nothing that can seriously stop you from easily doing so.

Interesting. Are there repercussions for Chinese citizens that visit blocked websites or VPN traffic? Probably not, but still curious.

Tor is not blocked. If you have an existing account you can continue using it after a few attempts. You can create new accounts over Tor by paying a small fee.

I've personally never heard of anyone getting in trouble for using a VPN and I've spent years in China. Supplying/Promoting VPN services might be a different story, but merely using it shouldn't be an issue at all.

Isn't the Chinese internet law very bureaucratic or slow?   Maybe the decision to block bitcointalk could had happened back in 2013 but it took them that long to move on it.

there won't be any results for this section. The only result will be more buisiness for vpn-providers.
Chill out. No impact. Everything continue as usual.


can't be done. One proxy is always there to take you to the provider. Blocking content on the web is the most useless and fruitless effort a government can make.

What's with this reddit guy saying he can access in shanghai free trade zone? he says other things he still can't access, but btctalk is ok! strange, or maybe my knowledge on how china ban works is not so good...

http://www.reddit.com/r/Bitcoin/comments/2h0nyr/bitcointalkorg_now_blocked_in_china/
(first comment)

There are no internet restrictions in the Shanghai free trade zone, that's what I heard when it just opened a year ago.

You can also go to Hongkong to obtain no internet restrictions.

But for a normal chinese it is not possible without having a special permission to go to Hongkong.

This article confirms what you heard and explains why Shanghai Bitcoin Conference attendees still see Bitcointalk.org

http://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/great-firewall-of-china-blocks-bitcointalk-org/

Quoting from it

The comment with the most upvotes, by far, in response to /u/theymos’s post on the Bitcoin subreddit seems to contradict the claim that the famous Bitcoin Forum has now been explicitly blocked by the infamous Great Firewall of China. However, this is not the case.The Shanghai Bitcoin Conference currently being held at the Lake Meilan International Convention Center provided censorship-free internet service to conference attendees via a proxy.

The Chinese government decided to allow this gap in their wall “in order to welcome foreign companies to invest and to let foreigners live and work happily in the free-trade zone, we must think about how we can make them feel like at home.”

Not surprised it isn't blocked. Anything increasingly gaining popularity online will be blocked by the Chinese government. Give it a year, and it may be popular enough to make China think it's a threat.

Now they're flat out saying they don't like bitcoins, and trying to actively censor it. This can only get worst once bitcoin gets even more popular over there.

I think those guys are too smart to bypass these small things lol  :D

Those who can understand bitcoin should have no problem using proxy and Tor lol. :D

take it from me you can still get around it 8)

They don't really hate Bitcoin, just trying to understand how they can profit most from it.

Tor with Bitcointalk is a problem as most nodes are banned here I believe. Atleast thats what shows up when I try accessing through Tor.

Nope entirely true.
There is no restriction for using Tor to visit bitcointalk, log in your existing account, and make posts.
The only restriction is that most of the Tor exit nodes are evil (recently banned accounts used the IP) and you need to pay a small amount before you can post with your newly registered account with Tor.

Thats what I said, some are banned which means I have to keep changing to find one which works. I thought its easy to find out which are Tor nodes, so banning them was pointless.